


The Flawed Bell

by middlemarch



Category: Ballerina | Leap! (2016)
Genre: Child Abandonment, Friendship, Gen, Jealousy, Orphans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 04:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11936811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Sometimes, he almost dashed it to pieces. Sometimes, he kissed the gleaming lid before he put it in his pocket.





	The Flawed Bell

For all the times Victor repaired Félicie’s music-box, he never told her how jealous he was of her. They arrived on the same day, Mother Superior always told the story that way, but it was always about Félicie snug in her basket with the blue enameled box tucked beside her “like a little rosebud with a dew-drop, she was!” and there was never a mention of how Victor had been presented on the broad sandstone doorstep. Likely in a pile of rags, like nothing so much as a forgotten potato in the burlap bushel. He’d never found out whether he’d come with his name or whether a nun had chosen it; no one could recall. There was no token left with him, no note pinned to his swaddle, not even a crumpled blossom. Félicie had her music-box and she treasured it but she did not keep it safe. It had been broken nearly as many times as he had devised ways to escape; she was fortunate he was better at reassembling the gears than at planning how to elude the other orphans and nuns, the searchlight a full moon cast upon them. 

He pretended to himself for a while that it was his. That his mother had left something precious with him to let the sisters know that he was worthy of love, that she could not abandon him without the least message, even if it led no-where. He knew how it was put together in every particular, how the little dancer spun on her axis, how it fit best on a palm spread wide to hold it. He never admitted to her what it cost him to let go of the fantasy. He could not risk her laughter, nor her eyes softening with the most subtle understanding. He redoubled his efforts on wings and reminded himself no eagle clung to its cracked ivory shell when there was the whole sky to explore.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like Victor gets short shrift-- where's his backstory? Here's a little something. The title is from Baudelaire's poem "La Cloche Felée" which translates to "the flawed bell."


End file.
